It started with the pandemic, and then the George Floyd murder, those next six or eight weeks after that were honestly probably the worst six or eight weeks of my life. We had a staff member killed, we had three of our young men killed, we had a 20-month-old baby of one our men (that) was killed, and it was just an extraordinarily dark time.

Arne Duncan

I believe that education is the civil rights issue of our generation. And if you care about promoting opportunity and reducing inequality, the classroom is the place to start. Great teaching is about so much more than education; it is a daily fight for social justice.

Arne Duncan

teaching education believe

Borrowing to pay for college used to be the exception; now it's the rule.

Arne Duncan

used college pay

Wherever you find something extraordinary, you’ll find the fingerprints of a great teacher.

Arne Duncan

great-teacher fingerprints teacher

Other countries haves passed us by. They're outworking us. They're outcompeting us. We have got to wake up and we have got to start moving.

Arne Duncan

wake-up country moving

The factory model of education is the wrong model for the 21st century. Today, our schools must prepare all students for college and careers-and do far more to personalize instruction and employ the smart use of technology.

Arne Duncan

smart college school

In America, your zip code or your socioeconomic status should never determine the quality of your education.

Arne Duncan

zips quality america

It's fascinating to me that some of the pushback is coming from sort of white suburban moms who, all of a sudden, their child isn't as brilliant as they thought they were, their schools aren't quite as good as they thought they were. And that's pretty scary.

Arne Duncan

mom children school

I think it's my job to tell the truth.

Arne Duncan

telling-the-truth thinking

The arts significantly boost student achievement, reduce discipline problems, and increase the odds students will go on to graduate from college. As First Lady Michelle Obama sums up, both she and the President believe 'strongly that arts education is essential for building innovative thinkers who will be our nation's leaders for tomorrow.'

Arne Duncan

carpe-diem believe art

If the goal is to dramatically improve college completion rates, not college-going rates by itself but college completion, it's not just a college problem. We need a big focus on early childhood education. Our early childhood education system is pretty good in this country. Not enough students have opportunity. And, very discouragingly, they lose their advantage because they go to poor schools after that. So, let's focus on our babies.

Arne Duncan

baby country school

I just think we can't do enough of this [student exchanges]... And when you get young children traveling internationally, I think they come back different people. And you can't put a price tag - you can't put a value on that.

Arne Duncan

price-tag children thinking

The jobs of the future, as you know so well, are knowledge-based. You need college-educated folks to do this work. And so the consequences for our country are absolutely devastating if we don't start to behave in very different ways.

Arne Duncan

behave different country

The only way we get better is to look in the mirror, assess our strengths and weaknesses, and figure out where we need to go. But if we run around saying, we're number one, we're number one, and we're not, that doesn't help us get where we need to go.

Arne Duncan

get-better weakness running

Teachers support evaluations based on multiple measures: student growth, classroom observation and feedback from peers and parents.

Arne Duncan

support parent teacher

Education is the civil rights issue of our generation.

Arne Duncan

our-generation issues rights

When schools truly become centers of the community, where you have extraordinary teachers, the best teachers, the best principals, great nonprofit partners coming in during the non-school hours to support and do enrichment activities, social services, then those students will beat the odds, will beat poverty, will beat violence in the community, will beat sometimes dysfunctional families, and be productive citizens long term. They will go to college.

Arne Duncan

college teacher school

If children are hungry, they need to be fed. It's hard to learn if your stomach is growling. We need to take that on. If students can't see the blackboard, need eyeglasses, we need to do that. If students need a social worker or counselor to work through the challenges they're facing at home in the community, we need to do that.

Arne Duncan

community home children

My vision is that schools need to be community centers. Schools need to be open 12, 13, 14 hours a day six, seven days a week, 12 months out of the year, with a whole host of activities, particularly in disadvantaged communities.

Arne Duncan

vision community school

At a time when going to college has never been more important, it's never been more expensive, and our nation's families haven't been in this kind of financial duress since the great depression. And so what we have is just sort of a miraculous opportunity simply by stopping the subsidy to banks when we already have the risk of loans. We can plow those savings into our students. And we can make college dramatically more affordable, tens of billions of dollars over the next decade.

Arne Duncan

risk college opportunity

We need to lengthen the school day. We need to lengthen the school year. Our calendar is based upon the agrarian economy. Children in India and China are going to school 25, 30, 35 more days a year. They're just working harder than us. So, we need more time, particularly for disadvantaged children, who aren't getting those supports at home.

Arne Duncan

home children school